A Tryal of Witches, at Bury St Edmunds Theatre Royal, began its run on International Women’s Day. This timing was incredibly purposeful, as Suffolk-based playwright Tallulah Brown aims to connect contemporary violence against women with a particularly horrific chapter in the local area’s history. In 1645, in Bury St Edmunds and Maningtree Matthew Hopkins, the witchfinder general, with his accomplice John Sterne together plagued the town and created some of the deadliest persecution of ‘witches’ in the country.

“The play centres on women entirely, as not only is the cast entirely female, but so too is much of the crew”

This play isn’t about Matthew Hopkins, but the women he and his accomplices pursued, harmed, and killed. Writer Tallulah Brown states in the programme that the play “is a revenge of a sort; a cry against what happened to these women.” The play centres on women entirely, as not only is the cast entirely female, but so too is much of the crew.

The play opens as the cast enters by the side audience doors, holding candles and singing. This song is repeated throughout the play with increasing intensity and anger. The lyrics such as “a hungry woman there’s none as vicious” match the haunting atmosphere; Tallulah Brown’s writing combined with the musical direction of Seraphina D’Arby creates an enduring eeriness.

The cast is small, numbering only seven, meaning that most of the actors play multiple roles, including those of the male witchfinders. I was a bit cautious about this at first, uncertain if seeing the same figure as a witch and her pursuer would undermine the feelings of imposing fear surrounding the latter. However, this element was pulled off masterfully. The costumes designed by Jessica Curtis and wardrobe supervisor Rebecca Rawlinson-Allen forged an immersive atmosphere, from tears in aprons, dirty caps, and a particularly striking bee-keeping costume.

“creating a sense of constant surveillance”

All the costume changes happened on stage, and cast members helped each other change costumes, propagating the underlying focus of female friendships, maternal love, and trust which we see breakdown throughout the play. This also meant that the actors hardly ever left the stage, instead they would sit on stools around the stage reacting to the action, creating a sense of constant surveillance. The central action occurs on a wooden platform, the back wall depicting the entrance to a house. Later in the play this wooden structure is gutted and hauntingly becomes the very scaffold where the accused are executed.

Emily Hindle is superb as Matthew Hopkins and Rose, an accused alewife. The frantic desperation and strong Suffolk accent Hindle achieves as Rose contrasts the cold presence and fanaticism of Matthew Hopkins. Similarly, Lucy Tuck is excellent in dual roles as Maningtree’s Reverend John Lowes, who gradually feels the accusatory glare turn on him, and Nathaniel, an employee of Mary’s at the alehouse who accuses her for his own gain. Another standout was Claire Storey as local healer and midwife Anne Alderman, who shows off her skills in a scene in which Anne is tortured. Her physicality captures the image of a hunched-over exhausted woman, beaten to the point of limping, poked, exposed, and held in a Christ-like pose with her arms spread. Here Sally Ferguson’s lighting design comes into full force, the use of a directly overhead spotlight adds to the surreal, otherworldly feeling created by the violence depicted on stage.

It was most often in Storey’s dialogue as Anne Alderman, the most outcast and obvious victim for accusations, that Brown’s writing can come with some platitudes which feel more heavy-handed – like the truism that whilst men fear women will “laugh at them,” women are scared that men will “kill them.” But perhaps directness is needed to ensure the play’s feminist message is communicated clearly to a varied audience. One particularly powerful allusion is made by Anne at her trial, decrying that Hopkins has imprisoned women who have had or helped with abortions. This creates a striking connection to the recent revocation of Roe vs Wade in the USA. In fact, the rulings on this case referenced the writings of Matthew Hale – the man who decided that spectral evidence was admissible roughly 250 years ago in the Bury St Edmunds and Manningtree witch trials.

“Rather than the image of patriarchal brutality, the show ends on a tender, mournful note”

I at first thought the play was going to end at the point of execution, in a moment of shock horror, focused on the macabre. However, the ending scene is instead one of beautiful intimacy, foregrounding female friendships, connection, and the devastation of being forced to leave the earth before you are “ready to go.” Rather than the image of patriarchal brutality, the show ends on a tender, mournful note.

Brown creates a chilling reminder that the violence we have watched play out on stage is all too real. The victims’ fear, their urgency to reject and escape their fates of pain, public humiliation, and death feels almost tangible. This pushes us to question what the purpose of observing violence against women, from what director Owen Calvert-Lyons calls the “safe distance” of history might be; are we still afraid to face the disconcerting similarities between our time and theirs? The structure of the violence, the hatred, humiliation, and suspicion bear a striking resemblance to the form patriarchal violence takes today.

‘A Tryal of Witches’ is showing at Bury St Edmund’s Theatre Royal from Friday 7 March until Saturday 22 March at 7:30pm and on Saturdays and Thursdays at 2pm.

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